Australia has won the first of the major international speedway events to be staged in 2014, the Speedway Best Pairs Cup, which was held over three rounds in Poland, Germany and Sweden.
Each of the rounds saw seven countries contest 21 heats, with the top scoring team going into a final against the winner of a last chance semi-final between the second and third highest teams.
Australia was represented by Chris Holder, Darcy Ward, Davey Watt, Jason Doyle and Cameron Woodward.
In the first round at Torun Poland, Australia (Holder and Ward, with Woodward as reserve) only just scraped into the semi-final on a countback against Sweden, but then beat Poland in the semi-final and Denmark in the final to take 10 series points, with Denmark getting 8 and Poland 6.
Australia looked unlikely to do as well in the second round, at Landshut Germany, after first Darcy Ward was forced to withdraw after suffering a torn cruciate ligament in his knee in the New Zealand Grand Prix, and then his replacement, Jason Doyle, was involved in a crash with Latvia‰Ûªs Maksim Bogdanow in his first ride.
At first it was thought Doyle had broken his leg. Fortunately that wasn‰Ûªt the case but he did suffer serious lacerations to his leg which meant he could no longer ride.
Reserve Davey Watt then came in to partner Holder and he was a revelation, so much so that Australia did even better than the first round, going straight into the final as top scorers by a comfortable margin, before again defeating Denmark to take their series by 20 points to Denmark‰Ûªs 12.
